Spelling Workout: Level A, Student Edition

I ordered this book as a recommendation from A Well Trained Mind. We are using Phonics Pathways as our book to teach reading. I have found that the writing and spelling suggestions in Phonics Pathways are sufficient to build spelling skills and do not need this book in addition to teach spelling to my first grader.

I'm a homeschooler. I ordered this workbook for my first grader. It is phonics based, has simple and direct lessons, and a veriety of activities. We are half way through the book and I'm very pleased with it. I have already ordered another copy for my younger son and the Level B for next year. I plan on using Spelling Workout for as long as the kids keep learning from it. It seems to work for us. It's a very good book...definitely worth a try!

I bought this book along with Level B upon the recommendation from The Well-Trained MInd for my 5-year-old son. He is naturally a very good speller since he's been reading for quite some time now. We looked through the books when they first arrived and knew immediately that they would be too easy, but we're going through them anyways because it's good handwriting practice. I set the Italic Handwriting book A alphabet in front of him while he works on this. There's also some proofreading exercises, which is new and fun for him. That being said, I will be looking for a more rigorous spelling curriculum since he loves this subject and wants to be challenged. I would recommend this if your child is still working on phonics and beginning reading, otherwise it may be too easy.

I thought I liked this line after the first year. Nothing like a true 1 year assessment. It appears like a good system and my daughter enjoys reading the little stories, but the stories are about all she remembers. It's only 1 star better than the brainless, let's beat our heads against a wall public school system. It lays out spelling rules and groups words by these rules. It offers numerous little exercises/games to "reinforce" the rules. These became a drudgery. The only exercise I feel is beneficial is practicing proof reading which includes capitalization and punctuation along with the spelling. There's the typical spelling test which gives you a false sense of accomplishment when compared to the pre-test. But alas, it's no different than the short term memorization then regurgitation routine that I grew up with. I'll stick with the idea of dictation/copywork using good literature and writing lessons. We're using Sequential Spelling. I'd start raving about it now, but this time I think I'll wait till the 1 year assessment.

I bought this book on the recommendation of some other homeschoolers that I know. I wasn't too excited about it when I first got the book, but I figured that we could use while I look for something else. As time has gone on, I've grown to like it less and less.
Each section contains works that have something in common, perhaps the way their long e is built. A little blurb tells the student what the relationship is, but that is as far as the program goes to building an understanding of phonics and consequently how to build words in English. I've reviewed these rules with my kids and they haven't understood them because the program doesn't make them practice them. The worksheets all have the words in a list directly on them, so the child simply has to copy the word instead of exercise his/her spelling abilities.
This program is busy work, not really what I had in mind when I went searching for a spelling curriculum. The kids really like to do the worksheets, but they aren't learning how to spell from them.